[The Life of Robert Blair]
The paradox of Dr Johnson, in reference to sacred poetry, has long ago fallen into disrepute. It seems singular indeed, how it ever obtained credence, even although supported by one of the most powerful pens that ever wrote in Britain, when we remember that, previous to that author's day, the best poetry in the world
had
been sacred. The Holy Scriptures then existed, with that poetry which bursts out at their every pore, besides being collected here and there into masses of rich song, "pressed down, shaken together, and running over." Dante, too, had written his great work, which, as if to mark it out for ever from things unclean and common, he had called the
Divina Commedia
, and which was worthy of the name. Tasso's
Gerusalemme Liberata
had a religious moral, as well as a title suggestive of religious ideas. Spenser's
Faery Queen
was sacred, if not in all the parts, yet at least in the pervading spirit of its poetry. Cowley's